Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Carlos Flores grew up in a busy home filled with a lot of love, both the human and canine kind. His mother was a teacher, his father an electrical engineer and Carlos was the oldest of three boys. When he was little, he grew up with a Cocker Spaniel and Chihuahua.

While staying extremely busy in high school as an honor roll student, three-sport athlete, and musician, he still found that he couldn’t get enough of dogs and wanting to spend time with canine companions. Carlos graduated from Suffolk University with a degree in Finance, moving on to a career in private client and institutional asset management.

By the age of 26, immersed in his career, Carlos realized he was ready to adopt a dog of his own. Renny, a rescue, was a sweet dog, but also struggled with massive anxiety and reactivity. Carlos tried to no avail to better train him and overwhelming Renny with love, but not seeing any consistent change for the better. After nine months of frustration and holding on to the attitude that he wouldn’t give up on Renny, he ran into a friend that encouraged him to bring his pup to the Boston Dogtor. It was this experience that changed the trajectory of Carlos’s life.

“Gevorg (the Boston Dogtor) worked with Renny, but he worked with me too and inspired me to be better with Renny by understanding him, learning his body language, and teaching me how to be a leader and communicate effectively with him,” says Flores. After having found significant success and progress with Renny, Carlos soon became a resource for others, as he delved into understanding canine behavior and motivators of different dog breeds worldwide. After a couple of years, Carlos started assisting and working at the facility where Renny was trained on the weekends and quickly knew he was completely and utterly hooked on becoming a full-time dog trainer.

From podcasts to seminars to reading on the subject matter, Carlos pursued his passion and was determined to educate himself as much as possible. “If I wasn’t working, I was doing things with dogs… period.” After hearing dog expert Jennifer Broome, founder, and owner of QK Dogs, on sporting dog talk podcast in the fall of 2020, he reached out wanting to better understand, equip and utilize his chocolate lab Addie for gun dog work and hunt tests. He fell in love with the facility at first sight and was impressed with the staff and the overall operation at Quinebaug Kennels. When he was offered an opportunity to apprentice, it was truly a dream come true. After several months of apprenticeship, he became a full-time QK Dog Trainer in the summer of 2021.